Olympians visit Hernando Middle

Olympian Trell Kimmons (right) follows seventh grader Oscar Montoya on the horizontal ladder following Wednesday's unveiling of Hernando Middle School's new outdoor fitness center. The equipment was purchased through a grant in association with Project Fit. Kimmons and fellow Olympian Rochelle Stevens delivered messages of getting fit, staying fit and living fit to the students.

Olympians Rochelle Stevens (center left) and Trell Kimmons (center right) encourage students at Hernando Middle School in staying fit by using the school's new outdoor fitness center. They were on hand to help unveil the equipment during a ceremony at the school Wednesday morning. The equipment was purchased through a grant in association with Project Fit. Stevens and Kimmons delivered messages of getting fit, staying fit and living fit to the students.

To the delight and giggles of students, Kimmons, who won a silver medal this summer in the 400-meter relay at the London Olympics, and former assistant principal Jerry Floate couldn't match the gentle swaying hips of 52-year-old Renaldo in a weighted hula-hoop contest.

Afterward, Kimmons admitted, "I never could hula-hoop."

Gold and Silver Olympic Medalist Rochelle Stevens of Memphis decided to sit out of the challenge: "I told them I didn't to want to break another record. I used to hula-hoop with one on my neck and another on my hip all at the same time."

Both Kimmons and Stevens and other local dignitaries helped the school celebrate winning a $26,000 grant from Project Fit America to buy indoor and outdoor physical fitness equipment, including the three-pound weighted hula-hoops.

In addition, the grant bought software so that school officials and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation can measure the body mass index of the school's 904 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

"This generation is in danger of not outliving their parents' age because of childhood obesity," warned DeSoto County Schools Supt. Milton Kuykendall.

When it was her turn to speak, Stevens gently chastised the students to put more of an effort into their workouts.

"I got here early," she said. "I've never seen guys do push-ups the way girls do push-ups, but they were. You all need to get busy."

The six-pack that Stevens talked about had nothing to do with beer but with her body and brawn, which she has built up over the years.

"We are like real, real ripped up," she said.

Stevens, now 46 and looking much younger in her hound's-tooth pencil miniskirt, told the students the Olympics were a dream to her as a 12-year-old. At Melrose High in Memphis, she practiced signing her autograph even when schoolmates called her vain and arrogant. But in 1992 and again in 1996, Stevens said, all her training paid off, and she showed the students both her silver and gold medals.

"I came back home with some hardware," she said.

Outside, Avery Shettles and other students demonstrated the new PE equipment. Avery, 13, showed off the vault bar by jumping over it several times. "Good job," Stevens yelled out. "You got your knees up."

Maizy Cox, 13, did a series of pull-ups with some assistance from Kimmons' trainer, Senatobia Police Sgt. Arthur Avant. "I really loved it," she said of the visit by Kimmons and Stevens. "Especially when she brought out her medals."

Kimmons, who will start training in November for the World Championship in Moscow, gave the students a major incentive.

"I'm willing to help anyone with the right frame of mind," he offered, adding a cautionary note: "I don't lollygag."